The dead condition of humanity resulted from following its own evil inclinations in response to the spiritual ruler of the fallen world. God owes humanity nothing except the judgment and destruction which they have earned. Yet, God remains profoundly merciful, providing the gift of salvation and a new destiny for those who follow Christ.
Because of the Fall, humanity was plunged into death as Paul says, “By the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man” (Romans 5:17). According to Pauline theology, Adam is the representative head of humanity, and his sin caused an inescapable addiction to sin. Adam’s sin predisposed the entire human race to reject the reign of God and accept the reign of sin. Each person decides to be an authority for themselves. Paul describes this morbid state as the normal condition under which the entire human race suffers.
There are three observations that come to mind concerning this ongoing death in which humanity continually suffers. First, this dead condition is universal. When Paul says, “All of us also lived among them” (Ephesians 2:3), he leaves nobody out of the equation.
The second observation is that all humanity is complicit in this deadness; it does not fight against the deadness of it all, but rather has gotten used to it. The phrase, “and we were children of wrath by nature, as also the rest of them were” (Ephesians 2:3) seems to insinuate that the descendants of Adam may not be the prime originators of this fallen condition in the sense that Adam was, but neither are they completely passive—or acted upon—by the transmission of Adam’s death.
It is not as though aside from Adam’s sin, we would all be innocent. Rather, the murky corruption in which everyone is born conveys death to each one. And each person is also complicit in this corruption and willfully accepts and relishes in the morbidity it conveys. Humanity delights in their dead, rebellious condition; they thrive in death. Adam may have plunged the human race into sin, but humanity stayed there willingly.
It is alienation and separation from God. It is a wretched condition caused by our own sins. This creates a cycle of death, because sin increases an appetite for more sin; death unto death. But even if mankind chose the reign of sin and death rather than the reign of God, his addiction to sin is no excuse. Each person is accountable to God for their rebellious heart. All this creates a deadness to God and a deadness to life.
Everyone “lived according to this world’s present path, according to the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Ephesians 2:2). Adam followed this ruler when he was enticed by Satan; his children still follow this ruler as they live in Adam’s death. Also like Adam, they chose to live out their lives in the cravings of their flesh, “indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind” (Ephesians 2:3). Hence, each person has lived in a manner controlled by the world, the flesh, and the devil. They have chosen to be ruled by the devil himself, rather than God.
The third observation is that this death is total. It is idiotic to ask how fatal this death is. There are no degrees of fatality. Humanity is utterly hopeless in ever reversing this death brought about by its own transgressions and sins. No one can raise himself from the dead. Everyone lives to gratify the cravings of this fallen nature. The only impulse that dead humanity possesses is the impulse to follow the ruler of this age into further gratification of the sin nature.
Not only is humanity taken captive by the ruler of the spirit of the air, but even if humanity could free itself from the chains of sin, it would not exercise that freedom. It has earned its judgment, ratified its intention to live independently from God’s ways, committed itself to vile tastes, and receives its sustenance and energy from the ruler of this present age, the evil one.
Humanity is a corpse ball looking for fresh enticements. Long dead lay the world, enticed to dark appetites by the ruler of this present age. Each person has lived to establish his or her own sense of what was right, instead of the standard of right and wrong being God’s unchanging holiness. Therefore, the world chose anarchy and alienation from God. It chose the serpent over the Savior.
The cycle of sin and death imprisoned every person; no one could escape. Somehow, someone from the outside had to break in and bring deliverance. Jesus Christ did that.
Though God owed nothing but judgment and damnation to those rebels, He Himself opened a way of salvation so that they might have opportunity to escape. He did this by virtue of Christ’s merit applied to those who received His gracious gift. He did it in order to blot out the traces of rebellion and shame. This act of God was based solely on God’s own mercy and Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, since it could not be earned by anyone.
God made believers alive in Christ. He gave them a completely new identity, gave them victory over the ruler of the spirit of the air, and gave them a new status all to showcase His great kindness and grace.
None of these things were earned by the recipients of grace, so that none of them could boast of any merit of their own. God offers each of us this gift of salvation. Make sure to catch part 2 next week.
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